President Obama’s Policies are not only driving people away from the Democratic Party but from his liberal progressive philosophy as well. A poll released by Gallup today reports that the American People continue their movement toward a more conservative political philosophy. This is a poll that the Republican party should study very closely, as they argue how “conservative” its candidates should be. The answer is very, conservatives (40%) outnumbered both moderates (36%) and liberals (21%) in December 2009.

2009 is only the third time since 1992,in which the average percentage of conservatives nationwide outnumbered moderates and the present 4 point lead is the largest during this period.

Overall, the growth in conservatives is coming from the moderates even more than Republicans:

Just looking at the decade that ended in 2009, Gallup’s annual political ideology trends document a slight dip in the percentage of Americans calling themselves moderate (from 40% in 2000 to 36% in 2009), while, at the same time, the ranks of both liberals and conservatives expanded slightly.

Gallup measures political ideology by asking Americans to indicate whether their political views are very conservative, conservative, moderate, liberal, or very liberal. The detailed responses show a slight increase between 2000 and 2009 in the percentage of Americans calling themselves “very conservative” (from 6% to 9%) and less change in the percentage calling themselves “very liberal” (from 4% to 5%). Most conservatives continue to call themselves “conservative” rather than “very conservative,” and the same pattern is seen for liberals.

Over the past ten years the number of Republicans calling themselves conservative has grown substantially. Over the past year, the Obama policies have driven independents toward a more conservative outlook.

At the same time the GOP has grown more Conservative, the Democratic party has grown more liberal.

This should be a wake-up call for Republicans. Many Republicans complained about the 23rd congressional district of NY when the grass roots in the party abandoned Dede Scozzafava the liberal Republican candidate, to support to the Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman. Based on the numbers, if the GOP nominates more “Scozzafavas” they will get more NY-23s. That is what Americans want,

Become a Lid Insider

Sign up for our free email newsletter, and we'll make sure to keep you in the loop.